There is an Ace Hardware store near me on 17th (and several others around town). The shop seems small, but it is cavernous and almost always has what I’m looking for – from bird seed to shelving. It seems crowded, but part of that is because they always have a lot of friendly and helpful employees around. What a great business model. They don’t treat me like I’m an idiot when I’m clueless (unless I’m asking for something stupid, see below) and they’ll walk me through a project like putting up shelves.

For Halloween, I was Maude Lebowski and I needed paint brushes for my costume:
Me: “Do you happen to have any old paint brushes with paint on them?”
Ace: “Uh… Why would have have that?”
Me: (looks over at my giggling boyfriend) “I just thought…”
Ace: “Let’s figure this out – what do you need it for?”

He helped me find just the right ones and then spray painted the tips green for me. Perfect costume, complete.

If you’re inside the bar, looking out into the circle, the small lights in the bar look as if they’re hanging from the trees in Dupont Circle – beautiful.

However, the service is mostly absent (albeit nice enough) in this often empty bar and the food is terrible. The margherita pizza we ordered had a crust that seemed like something out of a lunchables. (Washington Post average reader rating: 1 star)

Stick to the wine and enjoy the decor.

I caught up with the Fojol Bros‘ traveling food van in Dupont on Friday night: a little high on kitsch, but tasty enough to work. I had a little bite of their vegan Cauliflower & Potato dish and it was great – can’t wait to try the Eggplant! Basically, they travel around in brightly-colored coveralls and fake moustaches, playing ice cream truck music and then fun techno when they stop, serving Indian food in compostable dishes (props!), twittering all along. I had heard about them through twitter, assuming they were trying to cash in on the LA taco truck craze (they claim not). I think they’re still finding their footing, though – their backer/manager/? was hanging around asking what people thought, a little uneasy and a little too speidi. Anyway, good luck, guys!

Hi! My name is Leah Bannon. Sometimes I love to bitch about DC, but I hate it when other people trash the place, because this is a great city! (“I really prefer taller buildings… New York just has so much more to offer… The traffic here is terrible. Blah blah blah… I’m lame.”) So anyway, I live in Dupont and this is my blog. Enjoy! If you have any thoughts or questions, shoot me an email at leah@welovehatedc.com.